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Tabby Ivy's avatar

as I started to read your piece, 78296 and 84720 came immediately to mind. phone numbers from my youth. dialed without any area code. the first was also a party line, shared with some unknown entity who felt very intrusive and mysterious to a six year old. thanks for the look back, Paul. how things have changed.

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Paul Vlachos's avatar

Party lines are a concept that would be so completely alien to young people now. Or the idea of someone in your house picking up on another phone and listening in.

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Karen Brooks's avatar

TEmple 5 (aka TE-5) was what I grew up with... and my elderly mother still has that landline :) Appreciate your help in dredging up that fond memory!!

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Paul Vlachos's avatar

Life has moved so fast the last 25 years, it seems that dredging is the only way to get back there in memory.

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Ellen Fagan's avatar

Love this piece so much in all its incarnations! Minus the "Busman's Holiday" (thank you for returning that expression to me!) & need for morning coffee, I relate madly & specifically. Our childhood phone number began with BA4-, which stood for Bayside, my hometown, & my mom had it as her landline until the day she died. I own her personal phone book & still refer to it for the occasional mailing address - the neat cross-outs & squeezed-in updates are a beautiful old-school illustration of lives in flux. Thanks for this great evocative piece. So odd that we committed all those lengthy phone numbers to memory.

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Paul Vlachos's avatar

Thanks, El!

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Jeffrey Foster's avatar

Thanks Paul! It’s fun to look back on those days.

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Paul Vlachos's avatar

It's more than just nostalgia. Granted, some of this stuff is missing one's youth as much as anything else, but I continue to think of what we have lost with all of the technological capabilities we have gained.

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Constance's avatar

Always fun and a bit kooky. Love the way your mind works. Prestidigitations. Something about this is a Marx Brother movie. Harpo pulling an entire phone book from his pocket. And a heavy duty phone from the opoosite pocket. Then dialing and getting a pastry shop owner on the other end.

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Paul Vlachos's avatar

Love this imagine/scenario, Connie. xox

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will passinault's avatar

EM(pire) 9-0762 here....checking in from Grand Rapids, Michigan....good piece Paul

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Paul Vlachos's avatar

Thanks, Will! We need to bring back the old exchange mnemonics!

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